2002 BMW M3 Review - Base Price $46,545
The quintessential high-performance sports sedan.
Introduction
It's finally here: an M3 as good as the Europeans get. After years of longing (and pleading, and whining) by North Americans, and after taking model year 2000 off, BMW is now exporting an M3 with a new 3.2-liter engine, bumping the horsepower up from 240 to 333. The icing on this cake was the price, reflecting an increase whose value was greater than its numbers. Introduced late as a 2001 model, the 2002 is essentially identical.
Interior
The M3 Coupe is considered a five-seater, but don't count on it. There's a reasonable amount of room in the rear, but the middle guy needs to be a midget to have any chance at comfort, as the transmission tunnel rises nearly to the height of the seat. The rear windows in the Coupe, our test car, are power operated, but it's almost an affectation, because they only open by flaring out a few inches at the back, as if to let stale air out, not fresh air in. Practically speaking, passenger-wise, the M3 Coupe fits between a two-plus-two sports car and a sports sedan. Of course, because it performs like a Porsche or Corvette, its seating might fairly be compared to either, in which case it offers much more. (Pressing a switch in the Convertible lowers or raises all four windows at the same time, handy on hot days or when raising or lowering the top.)
The coupe also offers a nice trunk, which is pre-wired for a garage door opener, CD player, security system and cell phone, all of which are BMW features installed by your dealer. What's more, one-third of the rear seat folds forward to gain trunk access, enabling the carrying of long things such as skis or, in our case, a two-piece windsurfing mast. (The convertible offers little in the way of trunk space.)
Rearward visibility is not very good, thanks to the sloping roofline (which may be worth it because the aerodynamics are so good), and the small, oval-shaped, rearview mirror that appears to be taken from a '40 Ford. Given the fact that M3 drivers will be checking their mirrors a lot, this is a curious place to add a touch of retro style, if that's the intent.
There's a terrific dead pedal, which will be used a whole lot because of the car's cornering capability. And the lateral support in the seats is ample, although our torso still shifted during hard cornering because the back of the seat was so wide-odd, since we found the BMW Z3's seats too narrow at the back. Makes us wonder if seat width is a direct function of car width; or maybe BMW has information indicating that M3 buyers are fatter than Z3 buyers.
Speaking of fat, the three-spoke steering wheel contains buttons for cruise control, the audio system and factory-installed phone, which makes it bulkier and less racy than the Audi TT steering wheel, for sure. The instrument panel is clean, with the interior trim in 2002 being changed for the better from Black High Gloss to Titanium Shadow. Also in 2002, there are new headrests to improve safety, and a new automatic climate control system.
The gauges are simple white-on-black; there's a 180-mph speedometer and 9000-rpm tachometer with a glowing red zone that lowers when the engine is cold. There are water temperature and fuel gauges, of course, but surprisingly no oil pressure gauge. The flat switchgear buttons are nice, including for the radio, which is nonetheless complicated enough to require its own manual (taking up much of the small glovebox).
The slim console doesn't hold much, but there are pockets in the doors, and two cupholders between the front seats, although the console compartment has to be raised to use the rear cupholder. We might comment more on such things, which might be considered shortcomings in a five-seat passenger car; except we'll assume that with M3 buyers, console space is not a priority. What matters is performance.
But before we get to driving impressions, we have two observations in that area where ergonomics meet performance. The gas pedal is so close to the gearbox tunnel that our right ankle rubbed on the tunnel when we blipped the throttle during downshifts. And the gearshift knob had an impractical shape, sort of like the head of a golfer's wood, which precluded a good solid grip. These two things flawed the ergonomics of downshifting.
Walk-Around
Car gazers who know a little bit about BMWs will recognize what this is: M3 means Magic. Even bystanders who don't know the difference between an M3 and a garden variety 3 Series Coupe might recognize that this car is hot. What gives it away: the deep front airdam with its vast opening, aggressive fender flares, the hunkered stance, massive low-profile Michelin Pilot Sport tires, the bulging hood (necessary to accommodate the engine), dual twin exhaust tips, even the horizontal air gills just below the windshield pillar. Still, these things actually look subtler than they sound on paper. But your speed as you blast by these bystanders and the sound of the engine might also be tip-offs. Maybe more like a telegraph.
One thing that came on early M3s is missing: a rear wing. There's just a teensy little spoiler on the rear deck. That tells us something, either about the aerodynamics of the M3 or the necessity of rear wings on road cars altogether. Because M3s are regularly driven at speeds well over 100 mph on the Autobahn, where they are perfectly stable, it can be safely assumed that with wings, teensy (okay, let's say subtle) is perfectly effective. For sure, the M3's understated rear spoiler sure looks better than some silly showy thing.
As for the Convertible, you lose the rear center seat to provide room for the top when it's dropped, but it's not much of a loss because that center seat is of little use anyhow. If you're willing to pay eight grand for sun in your face and wind in your hair ($6900 if you don't count the leather that comes with it), you'll be very happy with the top. It goes up and down with one button, no latches. It's concealed under a hard boot that looks like a soft tonneau cover. It has a thick lining for winter comfort. The glass rear window contains a defroster. Rollover protection bars behind the rear seats are automatically deployed if the car starts to tip. Can't ask for more than all that.
The wheels are distinctive, although this particular style-call it ten-spoke, call it twin-spoke, call it twenty-spoke-sure looks dark in satin chrome, as well as busy.
We're not sure if the wheels look confused or just strong, but we are sure the engine looks like it means business. Under the lightweight aluminum hood, the new S54 3.2-liter, double-overhead cam, inline-6 M powerplant is canted a few degrees toward the passenger side in order to fit under the hood. There's a big intake plenum, riding over six aluminum fuel injector butterfly bodies that look like sidedraft carburetors on an old racing engine. The big matt black valve cover bears its M Power badge on top, and the muscular radiator fan squeezed behind the twin-kidney grille adds to the look of racecar plumbing.
After we were done admiring the engine, we were very impressed (though not really surprised) by the feel of the fingertip slamming of the aluminum hood. How can something that light make such a solid sound when it thunks down? How? BMW quality fit.
Impressions
The soundbite: It doesn't get any better than this. The catch: But you gotta be going 90 miles an hour. The post script: In a curve.
But before you get there, you'll go from zero to 60 mph in 4.8 seconds, and after you get around that curve, if there's a real long straightaway, you might reach 155 mph. You and the engine might want to do more, but the engine management software won't let you go beyond that.
The most legal fun might be in accelerating to 70 mph on freeway onramps. The M3 loves to go through the gears, and you can actually hit redline at 8000 rpm in second gear before you have to back off to stay within the law. Second gear. So maybe you can't actually "go through" the gears. You can always short shift, of course. But jeez it's hard, when the car is accelerating so sweetly, and it sounds so wonderful, and it really really really wants you to stretch its legs all the way up to eight grand. It shouts, sings to you, "Please! Use me! That's what I'm here for! Don't let me down!" You're gonna deny it?
The exhaust note is what you might expect from a 3.2-liter, 333-hp inline-6. Inline-6s are known for their sweet sound. On a racing car, sometimes the sound can be spine-tingling (Jaguar), and sometimes it can be ear-blasting (Chevy TrailBlazer Baja truck). Inline-6s are not throaty nor beefy like a V8 (BMW M5). The M3 has a muted exhaust note, almost raspy. Like the rest of the car, it doesn't attract attention (not even your own) unless you're accelerating to 8000 rpm.
Seventy miles per hour in sixth gear is a mere 2650 rpm, but there's enough torque that if you floor it without downshifting (not that you would, this is just a test), you'll take off. If you're on a two-lane in a series of third-gear turns, with no gear changing, the engine responds like the world's most exotic and satisfying rheostat.
And then there's the Sport mode. Not to be confused with a transmission sport mode, it's described as Engine Dynamics Control by the manual, which adds that Sport mode will cause the engine to "respond more spontaneously to the motion of accelerator pedal." Oh really? We think maybe "spontaneous" is not the word BMW was searching for, here.
Sport mode does indeed gas the car on its own, however. Not a lot, but if you're driving along at a steady speed and click the button on the instrument panel, the car will shoot ahead a bit as if a tiny afterburner had been lit. After that, the throttle response will be more aggressive. We like it. It's very practical, very functional. Simply, there are times when you don't want aggressive throttle response, times when you do.
The shifting linkage doesn't offer as short a throw as it might, but shifting is quite positive; the clutch action is especially and admirably smooth. It's easy to accidentally slip the gearbox into reverse if you're going from third gear to first, like when you come up to a red light that changes to green just after you stop.
If you want racier shifting, go for the optional sequential manual gearbox. It's the future.
Like the M5, the ride is amazing. No other carmaker that we can think of can design suspensions that corner like a racecar yet ride so comfortably, and the M sport suspension is specific to the M3. Definitely, it's firm; but we suspect it's a lot firmer than your butt thinks it is. If you know why you bought an M3, that firmness will be well worth the price of an occasional jab to the butt. Considering the handling you get for it, it's a steal.
At higher speeds you can feel the jabs, but not much, and they never move the car off its track. The M3 erases the bigger bumps at higher speeds better than it does the sharp ones at low speeds, however. There's one particular manhole cover near our house that we learned to brace ourselves for, when that left front wheel hit it at 25 mph. If ride quality is important to you, then you may find plenty of performance from the BMW 330i models (see separate NewCarTestDrive.com review of the BMW 3 Series).
The huge ventilated disc brakes are killer, no surprise there. As we recall, only the M5 has brakes like this. On wet surfaces, the ABS is fantastic. Braking ability is generally measured from 70 mph to stop, but with a car like this, a more significant measure might be 100 mph to 30, an area where the M3 inspires total confidence.
Notice: "The laws of physics can not be repealed even with DSC. We therefore urge you to avoid using the additional safety margin of the system as an excuse for taking risks." So says the M3 manual.
DSC stands for Dynamic Stability Control. Such systems, which control the car by varying the throttle, spark or brakes, or all three, when wheel slip occurs, are common on sophisticated cars now. But they're all different. Like ABS, some systems work better than others. And the M3's is specific to the car. A system's invisibility, whether it intrudes on the driving experience in undesirable ways, is one measure for determining what's better.
The unfortunate, if understandable, thing is that they're so complicated that even the manufacturers' public relations people don't know the details of how they work, and even the engineers (who didn't design the system) are sometimes stumped.
Wheel speed, steering angle, lateral acceleration, brake pressure and vehicle movement around the car's vertical axis are evaluated by the sensors, and intervention comes in milliseconds. What type of intervention, when, and why is the complicated part. Automotive journalists are left with explaining how the car feels, not what it's doing, let alone why. Which is probably enough.
So we can tell you this: On our favorite secret backwoods road, where we defied the manual by attempting to defy the laws of physics, the DSC put us in our place every time, and with relatively little intrusion. Those last three words are the key. Meaning, not merely that we were unable to spin the car out at the rear end or slide it off the road at the front end, but that when we abused the throttle, even on a wet surface, we got traction without the throttle being totally shut down on us. It's one of the most advanced electronic stability programs out there, if not the most advanced system.
For example, we think the brakes were applied to gain traction, without the throttle being cut. Racing drivers do this all the time, dab the brakes with the left foot while the throttle is floored with the right. On our wet backwoods road, we saw the DSC light flash on the dash a lot, without the throttle or spark being cut, at least not that we could feel. The DSC works with the M Variable Differential Lock traction control, and the answer to this invisibility lies in the teamwork.
By the way, you can turn the DSC off. We did that too, though only for one drag-race launch on dry pavement. The M3 will burn rubber just like the old days, spinning the tires all the way up to redline in first gear. Cool. A German magazine turned the DSC off too, for skidpad testing, and the M3 achieved a higher level of grip than the Porsche 911.
In summary, it's hard not to be smooth with the M3, given its high-speed stability, its throttle response, its clutch and shifting action, its brakes, and its precise but not too quick turn-in. The problem may be that it's too good. You have to drive it very fast to fully appreciate it, and that mostly leaves a large longing in your heart, a longing for a closed-off road or a racetrack.
Summary
Own an M3, and you can claim to own the best high-performance car on the market that isn't a total exotic. It's faster and grippier than a Porsche 911. But the best part may be that you won't have to make any significant compromises in civility.
Find more reviews at New Car Test Drive. The wolrd's leading provider of Automotive Reviews.
|